


Let's Go See A Movie

by DeathSquiggles



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Michael having emotions and Gavin being awkward but supportive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 21:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9203651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathSquiggles/pseuds/DeathSquiggles
Summary: The lads have a free day and decide to go see a movie. It brings up some unexpected emotions.GTA Universe Hurt/Comfort between Michael and Gavin, can be read as platonic or romantic.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I used the ampersand. What a day!  
> This was written for my awesome mutual Rachel (@catboysam on tumblr) as part of the hurt/comfort dialogue prompt meme.

“The gents are out today,” Jeremy says, pouring himself a glass of juice.

“Yeah?” Michael glances up from the explosive detonator he’s fiddling with to make eye contact across the room. “What should we do?”

“What? We’re doing something?” Gavin wanders in with a mug of tea cradled to his chest. “What’re we doing?”

“We haven’t decided yet.” Michael replies.

Gavin tilts his head. “Should we blow something up?”

“Nah,” Jeremy makes a face. “We just blew something up last week. If we do it again, Geoff’s gonna be pissed.”

“Geoff’s not here though, is he? Not our faults if something happens.” Gavin takes a sip from his mug and raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah? And where are you going to get the explosives?” Michael asks.

“From you, of course, lovely little Michael!”

“No.”

“Aw, but Michael-”

“No, Gavin. Not after the water tower incident. Never again.”

Gavin pouts.

“We could… Like, go bowling or something,” Jeremy suggests.

“Would anyone even  _ let _ us bowl?” Ray calls from where he’s horizontal on the couch, DS held precariously about a foot above his head. “I mean, we’re like, some of the most notorious criminals in the country. Someone would notice who we are and call the cops.”

“Then we torch the place and leave, like usual.” Michael says with a shrug.

“Yeah, but we don’t have the gents to bail us out, or anyone to support us if it goes wrong,” Jeremy points out. “That’d be a fucking stupid way to die, after everything we’ve been through.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. ‘Bowling Alley Fire’ is one of my top five ways to go.” Ray deadpans.

“You know, I can never tell when you’re being serious. It’s a real problem.”

“For you, maybe.”

“Well, if we’re looking for something normal to do, we could play laser tag.” Gavin suggests.

“Fuck that. I wanna go see that new movie. What’s it called-  _ Soldiers of Anarchy, _ or something?”

“That looks bloody awful. It’s just two hours of gratuitous explosions and gunfire.” Gavin replies, finishing his tea and setting the mug on the counter, a foot away from the sink.

“Yeah, exactly.” Michael grins.

“Put your cup in the sink, you fucking animal.” Jeremy mutters, moving to swipe it and put it away himself, because he knows in his heart that Gavin never will.

“The cinematography is going to be awful. They never know how to shoot those things right.”

“Then this will be fun for you. You love complaining about cinematography.” Michael sets the detonator down on the table and stands, pulling out his phone. “Let’s go to the theater on 10th. You can reserve your seats online, so we don’t have to worry about shitty teens sniping the good spots. Are you in on this, guys?”

Gavin crosses his arms, but nods. Michael’s right; he does love dissecting shitty slow motion filming and otherwise low quality work. It’s what he probably would have ended up doing, in another life- filming things with high-speed cameras and slowing it all way down. He heads for the door to start putting his shoes on, Jeremy following while chugging his juice.

“Ray?” Michael glances over and finds he’s still on the couch, looking completely oblivious to their conversation. If he didn’t know any better, he’d assume that Ray had been tuning them out. But Ray has always been an observant little fucker and he’s overheard a great many private conversations in his years by looking passive and unassuming.

The DS slowly lowers until it’s flush with Ray’s chest, and then he sighs. “Sure, I guess.”

So they all pile into one of Geoff’s nicer four-seaters and manage to snag a spot right near the doors. Michael pulls up the tickets on his phone and gets in line while the others head over to the concessions counter.

A disinterested teen scans the screen while Michael taps his foot on the stained carpet. He catches their eyebrows raising and turns his head to look at them properly, wondering if he’s been recognized, if he’s going to have to knock out a teenager’s teeth- but they just hand him the tickets and point him toward the auditorium he wants.

“Come on, we’re down this way,” Michael says as he approaches the others, now carrying large buckets of popcorn and oversized sodas.

Their seats are up near the back, so they can quietly whisper shit-talk without getting kicked out. Michael ends up between Jeremy and Gavin, with Jeremy on his left, Gav on his right, and Ray on Gavin’s other side. They’re early enough that the pre-previews are still showing.

Ray tucks back into his DS and deflects pieces of popcorn that Gavin attempts to toss into his hood. One of the pieces manages to get knocked into Michael’s lap, and then a small popcorn war breaks out between them. Jeremy gets sucked in. Throwing escalates into pushing, which escalates into wrestling over the top of the divider, and then the bucket ends up on the floor and half of their popcorn spills everywhere.

_ “Gavin!” _ Michael hisses.

“What? That’s not my-”

“Go get more, dumbass.” Michael shoves a bill into Gavin’s lap and pushes him until he begrudgingly takes up the now half-empty bucket and shuffles back out to the side of the auditorium.

The real previews have started by the time he returns. “Michael,” Gavin says, handing the popcorn off to Jeremy. “Are you sure this is the right theater?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Gavin’s brows furrow. “I thought we were watching that new war movie.”

“We are,” Michael replies, growing confused.

“But the sign above the door said this was for a different movie.”

Michael checks the top of his ticket stub. “This is auditorium 10, right?”

“Yeah, but-”

“Then we’re in the right place. It’s fine.”

Gavin looks unconvinced, but shrugs and settles back into his seat.

After about half a minute passes and Michael becomes reabsorbed with the ad for Kaitlin Olson’s new comedy on the screen. Ray leans over to Gavin and murmurs, “This is the wrong theater.”

“What?” Gavin whispers back.

“I recognize this sequence of previews. This is for the movie Ryan dragged me to last week.”

“What?” Gavin repeats. “But I thought Ryan took you to see some rom com thing.”

Ray gives him a grim look. “He did.”

Gavin leans back over to Michael. “Can I see the ticket stubs?”

“What? Why?”

He huffs out a breath. “Just let me see.”

Michael gives him a look but hands them over. Gavin’s eyes widen upon reading the title. “Michael. This isn’t the new war movie.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Of course it’s-”

“Look.” He thrusts the ticket stub in Michael’s face. “What sodding war movie is called  _ The Final Kiss?” _

It’s hard to tell in the dimmed lights, but Gavin thinks Michael goes a bit pale. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and furiously taps on things until the email confirmation comes up, and then he stares at it for a while.

“...Whoops.”

“Well, let’s go get tickets to the right thing, then.”

“I didn’t bring enough cash for that.”

“What? Why not?” Gavin asks, incredulous.

“In case we got fucking arrested or something, I don’t know. I didn’t expect I would have to buy a whole extra set of tickets.”

“What’s going on?” Jeremy asks from Michael’s other side.

“Michael bought us tickets to a  _ rom com.” _ Gavin explains.

“Oh,” Jeremy says, then shrugs. “Alright.”

The opening sequence starts. Gavin drops his head into his hands. This is going to be a long couple of hours.

Ray pulls off his hoodie and drapes it over himself so he can hide in a clothing cave and continue to use his DS as the lights dim the rest of the way. Gavin envies his foresight and wishes he had the same ability to wear a hoodie even in the sweltering summer heat, if only for this one specific use.

It’s a generic love story between generic fit dude and generic blonde woman. Until generic fit dude reveals halfway through that he has to enlist to honor his dead father, or something- Gavin wasn’t paying that much attention- and leaves generic blonde woman behind when he’s called to serve. He’s occupied himself with spotting continuity errors between shots and loses track of the proceedings for a little while- and then he hears the first sniffle.

Generic fit dude was killed in action, of course. But he was stockpiling letters to generic blonde woman, of course. And now fit dude’s superior has brought her the letters along with the rest of his belongings and she’s reading them, and they’re all talking about how much he misses her and sappy garbage like that- but Gavin has become much more interested in shooting glances at Michael, who has actual, legitimate  _ tears _ streaming down his face while he watches.

It’s so off-putting and  _ wrong _ to see a hardened criminal quietly sobbing over a frankly mediocre love story that Gavin can’t find any way to make fun of him for it. It’s just too awkward. So he says nothing when Michael covertly wipes away the evidence of his emotions, and he says nothing when they file out of the theater and head back to the apartment. Jeremy chatters on about how much he hated the antagonist (blonde lady’s bitchy boss), and Ray throws in his hotness ratings for a few of the characters, but Michael doesn’t really add anything or engage like he normally would.

He disappears into his room practically as soon as they step through the door. Should Gavin follow him? What would he say? God, this is weird. He likes his relationship with Michael because it is distinctly  _ lacking _ in this kind of complication. Maybe he’ll just give Michael space and pretend it never happened. Yeah, that seems like the right move.

Ray, who Gavin realizes has been watching him since they got back, taps Gavin’s shoulder with his fist. Gavin looks over and receives a seriously unimpressed look. Ah. Of course, Ray noticed what happened.

“Don’t be chickenshit, Vav.”

“What’d’you mean?” Gavin asks, hoping that Ray will buy his lame excuse and let him off the hook.

But Ray shakes his head. “Something’s up. Go talk to him.”

Gavin curls his lip slightly and hunches up his shoulders. “Why can’t you do it?”

“He’s closer to you. Just go, man.”

With a small physical push to his shoulder from Ray, Gavin starts the foot-dragging journey down the hallway to Michael’s door. He knocks twice, waits a few seconds, then calls, “Michael?”

There’s silence for several seconds, then a quiet, “What?”

“Are you- Uh… Can I come in, Michael?”

Another pause. “...Fine.”

Gavin pushes open the door and hopes that he has misjudged the situation. He curses internally at the sight of Michael’s red and puffy eyes, then shuts the door behind himself and stands awkwardly in front of it while Michael stares resolutely out his window.

“So.” He says. “You saw.”

“I… Did. What’s… What’s going on?”

Michael shakes his head. Gavin bites his lip, making a mental note to practice his withering looks so he can properly convey his current feelings to Ray later on.

“Can I sit down?”

Michael glances up at him, then looks back out the window, scooting over on the bed a few inches to make more room. Gavin takes this as an invitation and sits. And… Now he has no clue what to say. He can smooth talk his way through any situation, but that’s with  _ strangers- _ not with the people he has to see again tomorrow, and the next day, and forever- and not with Michael. Who now has fresh tears streaming down his face, oh shit.

“No, don’t cry,” Gavin says, clenching his fists in his lap, hating how useless he feels. “I hate it when you cry, Michael. It was just a movie. It’s alright, boy.”

“I know,” Michael snaps, reaching up to scrub at his eyes. “I know it was a fucking movie, Gavin.”

“So why’re you-”

“It’s fucking stupid.”

Gavin purses his lips. “Not if it’s making you that upset.”

“It is,” Michael insists. “It’s ridiculous. This shitty fucking movie made me- Look, the main guy. He’s kind of a dick, right? Left home and became nothing, just to spite his parents. But then his dad, his stern but loving military father, goes and dies in the line of duty, and his last wish was for his son to  _ be  _ something, and it just-” He has to stop, control his breathing.

Gavin can’t stand the sight of him, hunched over on himself, shaking from the effort of keeping the sobs at bay. He’s rubbing comforting circles into Michael’s back on autopilot and waits for him to regain his composure a bit.

“The guy actually did what he was supposed to. Honored his father’s memory and shit. And it just kind of felt like the universe slapping me in the face, like,  _ look! Even this shitty fake douchebag did what you didn’t have the balls to do.” _

Still without any clue of what to say, Gavin ends up wrapping Michael in a sideways hug, tucking his chin over the top of Michael’s head when he quickly leans into the touch. They sit, pressed together, while Michael not-quite-cries and Gavin continues not knowing how to comfort him, aside from being physically present like he himself needs during bad moments.

Michael slowly calms down. His breathing evens out in a way that isn’t so clearly forced, like before, and the tightness in his shoulders gives way to an exhausted slump.

“I’m such a piece of shit.” He mutters, but he seems less actively upset and more defeated.

It’s awful, and completely wrong, coming from someone so boisterous and joyful and clearly high on life- and Gavin can’t keep himself from responding.

“You’re not. I don’t care what the fake people do in fake world. You’re real, Michael. And you might be an asshole who dumps popcorn all over me and makes me go get more, but you’re my  _ favorite _ asshole. You’ve always done what makes you happy. That’s more than the fake people who throw away their lives for some phony sense of honor can say.”

A moment of consideration passes. Then, “You’re the one who tipped the popcorn over.”

Gavin rolls his eyes and smiles much too fondly.

Michael pulls back away and clears his throat. “So, uh. Do you wanna go wrap all of the shit in Geoff’s room in tin foil?”

“Yes,” Gavin says, grinning. “I would love to.”


End file.
